Real Weddings | Tampa, FL

Emily first met Binyamin when she moved to Israel for graduate school. She had just moved into a new apartment and found her washing machine didn’t work — her landlords sent over their son, Binyamin, to have a look. The two became friends and soon started dating.

Four years later, on their last night in Jerusalem, they were headed for a night out together when Emily realized her grandmother’s engagement ring, which she’d inherited years earlier, was missing. It turns out Binyamin was about to propose! He had chosen a diamond for Emily but hadn’t yet had it set, so he used the heirloom as a stand-in. “I tearfully said yes,” Emily remembers.

On the wedding day, Emily carried a bouquet of yellow parrot tulips (her favorite flowers), orange gerbera daisies, mango calla lilies, and peach-hued English tea roses. The bouquet was wrapped in fabric from the sleeve of her mother’s wedding gown and secured with a monogram brooch that had belonged to her maternal grandmother. It was given to her at her own wedding in 1937 with her new initials.

The couple stood beneath a chuppah adorned with curly willow and moss and covered with an ivory tablecloth the bride’s parents had received as a gift at their own wedding.